Do you ever wonder if what you do might be completely pointless? That your current occupation might, in some way be futile?

No real reason for asking. It's just the Mill supposes there are some jobs that must have this effect. A tinsel salesman on Boxing Day. The literary editor of the Daily Star. Ryanair Customer Care Liaison Officer. Lancashire County Cricket Club sun block, Ray-Ban and flip-flop procurement officer. And most pointedly of all, perhaps, the whirring, clunking, industrial revolution-era Rumour Mill the day after the transfer window thunks shut until 2010.

The Mill has been tempted to come up with a special new verb tense for a day like this – perhaps the Rumour-Guff Future Imperfect, describing a rumour that will have would might could be about to have been happening in a parallel universe where it even theoretically mattered. Or the Rumour Past Conditional, to describe a rumour that might have could have nearly would have been happening if it had have actually happened instead of not happening.

But in the end the Mill just sort of gave up and stared at its yellowing keyboard for a bit trying to envisage a happy, neutral space and not in any way a tall building or a dangerously unsecure agricultural threshing machine, or a hand grenade or anything like that. And after a while the rumours themselves started to feel strangely light and frothy, fun even. So here it is, a celebration of the rumour, of rumouring for rumour's sake.

Today's Sun brings talk of Richard Dunne's minor paperwork hitch on the way to Aston Villa. Will someone at the Premier League fix the paper-jam without having to call in Gavin from central services who's always a bit surly and smells faintly of Scotch egg? Either way Dunne's move seems to have kicked off his Villa career in familiar fashion: late, clumsily-executed and presumably involving a variety of anguished and slightly heart-rending facial expressions.

Franck Ribéry has "blasted" Louis van Gaal using a small, grey plastic hand-held toy pistol that makes a feeble "djooo-djooo" noise. ""I have no trust now and that makes everything much more complicated. I have no feelings with Van Gaal," he said, closing his eyes and trying hard to have feelings about an ageing Dutchman with quite a fat head.

Thinking he was set to join Burnley, Daniel Cousin has "taken an angry swipe at Phil Brown", missed, almost overbalanced and then pretended he was just sort of leaning against the wall after finding out the deal has fallen through.

And Dimitar Berbatov has been "threatened by a gangster for sending flirty texts to his lover, it was claimed last night." According to the Sun, the man in question is a Bulgarian called Georgi "The Head" Stoilov, a man with a reputation for not ever being able to find a swimming cap in his size. It's all about The Head's ex: Nikoleta Lozanova, Bulgarian Playmate of the Year 2006. The Sun seems to be implying she once did The Head's Ferrari with acid too. Berbatov has reacted by looking perplexed and shrugging his shoulders.

In the Mirror, David James "fears for his World Cup place" after being "left stranded" at Portsmouth. Some talk about "Arab tycoon Sulaiman Al-Fahim's farcical takeover". Blah. 'Arry Redknapp. Tried to rescue. Falling behind Robert Green. Paul Hart annoyed. Wiffle. Missing out on the chance to pointless drop the ball a lot and then grin about it annoyingly in South Africa next year. And so on.

And this just in: nothing is happening to David Bentley. David Bentley: no change. David Bentley is going nowhere, very much in the same style as when he tries to run quite fast on the right wing and just ends up looking like a man slowing sinking to his waist in an ancient peat bog. The closest he got to something happening was a low-level and debased-sounding "loan-swap" involving Martin Petrov.

In the Daily Star, Nicholas Anelka is "angry and frustrated" that he won't be given a fat new contract this year. "Anelka's mood has not been improved by Chelsea's decision to award skipper John Terry a new £160,000-a-week contract," insinuates the Star. Which sounds odd, because you'd think he'd already be planning a really big party where he holds up a banner with "JT:160k" on it and brings in a cake he baked himself with a tiny figurine of John Terry on the top pouring a Nebuchadnezzar of champagne over his head, setting fire to huge piles of banknotes and laughing uncontrollably while a small, sad figurine of Anelka skulks on a far corner of the cake emptying out his pockets, which contain just fluttering moths and the keys to his 1993 Austin Maestro hatchback.

In the Daily Mail, Everton have not signed Rafael van der Vaart, which wouldn't have not been not an uninteresting move, albeit without not being not unsurprising.

And E.ON, the world's most banging, loved-up energy company have unclenched their jaws, stopped chewing gum, called a brief halt to their endless big-fish-little fish-cardboard-box dance and announced that they don't want to sponsor the FA Cup anymore because they've started to feel really terrible and they're going to have to lie awake tossing and turning and feeling like the contents of their head is seeping out through their left ear.

In the Times, Harry Redknapp is "frustrated" because he failed to stuff Bentley, Petrov and Matthew Upson into his oversized canvass holdall, jimmy them into the back of his Jag, get home, forget about them, leave them out overnight and then spend some time convincing himself they haven't gone off or anything but still leaving them at the back of the fridge for a week before quietly chucking them out.

And with that, the Mill declares the extended and increasingly fretful build-up to next year's transfer window open. You can't kill the rumour. The rumour is old, she is strong. She goes on and on and on.